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our manifesto
“As if thinking was really free. . . . .free from what?” Gary quips. He accuses Elbow of denigrating thinking to “a fluid sequence of nothings.” “To remove the constraints,” according to Gary, “is to not bother writing at all.” Writing, then, becomes more than simply squeezing words out onto a page like toothpaste from a tube. Writing becomes meaningfulness. “The more effective process,” Gary writes, “is to move through the constraints, to suck in the stomach and squeeze by its tight walls.”
When we transfer the possession of something through technology, maybe it feels like it is free?
“I wanted to stop Peter’s wobbling, the wobbling that was, in my mind, resulting from his insistence on the overwhelming importance of freewriting, freewriting as the single, perhaps sole pathway to the unconscious. There are other ways in, I was telling myself, without knowing it.”
dialogues and exchanges
Doubt: i was trying to think about some of what we were talking about on friday, about how confusing "free" can be, especially with the introduction of technology
Believe: right -- well it sort of gets back to how an individuals "right" to ownership of any intellectual property has changed over time because we now have relative infinite access to each other's work via technology and thats why people feel fine downloading free music but wouldnt walk in to the record store and steal it -- technology has changed their perceptions of their rights. or in actuality it has made things such a blind act that the individual rationalizes their use of technology as a reasonable "right". People enter into an agreement with their own heads and the transfer of possession is entirely technological. There's no audience so people think it's ok.
Doubt: you mentioned on friday something about access and availability when talking about the increasingly complex notion of free and i think in general you don't believe people (generally speaking) should have access and/or availability to you, right? that's a broad statement, but . . . i remember you used an expression at one point about people turning pages slowly with each other, which was interesting
Believe: well i certainly do not believe access is a "right" as it is sometimes thought of. Yea people as books. . .the idea that you experience people like books -- some you pick up and revisit over and over again and fall in love with. others you open and close, or read and dont get, or read entirely and only like 10 pages of . . . just that for me, the best books unfold in time -- and that theres no rush either per se.
Doubt: Does anything elbow related jump at you if you think about [the law of supply and demand?
Believe: well, i think he would say that it doesn't apply, right, because all things considered, we have an infinite supply of words. . .are you suggesting that if we ration them, they will be worth more?
maybe not that they would be worth more . . . but they would stand out more. like if you shotgun shell a blank canvas (silence) with paint compared to if you let 1 drop on -- which one "says" more
Doubt: it's making me think about what you said about how, in music, you are constantly trying to say more with less. . .that's essentially an argument about the value of craft
Believe: i was trying to think about what you said the other day about how speed chess is not as "pretty" as standard chess. . .and wondering whether there's a way of thinking about an economy of words that renders thought more graceful-like poetry--and, assuming we value grace (which we may or may not), therefore more valuable . . . i don't think that elbow would argue against craft . . .
Doubt: he would simply say there's a time and a place for it. . .then the argument becomes what's the time and where's the place
Believe: right....but im trying to think of another version of freewriting ... like free jazz or something. . .but then it gets me back to what ive said before . . . why put anything down on the page at all? isnt a blank page as "free" as a page covered in forced ramblings hidden by the word "free"
Doubt: but how "free" is free jazz?
Believe: not that free . . . thats the point . . . think
Doubt: could you imagine playing free jazz if you didnt know some fundamental principles about jazz? . . . you can't play free jazz until you know jazz . . . totally the opposite of what elbow says about freewriting
Believe: i think thats true
Doubt: i like that idea about the blank page as representing the ultimate freedom
Believe: exactly
Doubt: so do I
from elbow's perspective, though, a paralyzing freedom
Believe: ?
Doubt: why any more or less paralyzing than entertaining the notion that you can tap into some sort of unconscious pouring of self through words that, start, fundamentally, with the notion that a large portion of it is innately useless or nonsensical?
elbow says he discovered freewriting as his only way out of a paralyzing case of writer's block
in some ways, i think he abandoned the notion of craft as a result, though he wouldn't admit that i don't think
Believe: but his writing doesn't feel loved to me
Doubt: hmmm i'm thinking about what you said about luigi the other day, remember?
Believe: right
Doubt: about how much care he took with his chess pieces?
Believe: that's not elbow